When the initial point spread for Sunday’s matchup between the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings was released, the Vikings were listed as a 3.5 point favorite, which was not much of a surprise considering they had just upset the Packers and the Lions were coming off a tough loss to the Colts.
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But on Wednesday, news broke that Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford had been placed on the reserve/COVID-19 after coming into close contact with a person close to his family that had tested positive for the coronavirus.
Upon that news breaking, Las Vegas immediately took the Lions vs. Vikings point spread off the board and that is how it remained until Saturday afternoon when Stafford was officially removed from the reserve/COVID-19 list. Despite being removed from the list, Stafford has one last hurdle to clear and that is testing negative one last time on Sunday morning.
That being said, if you trust the theory that “Las Vegas always knows,” the fact that they re-posted the point spread, AND kept it at the initial 3.5 points, points to them believing Stafford will play against the Vikings.
And as I have been saying since the moment Stafford was put on the list, I believe the same thing.